My Steam account got hacked, by the time (just over 3 weeks) Valve let me know it had indeed been hijacked and had reset my password. Logging in I found my account VAC banned. I was told that the ban would not be lifted and no information would be provided; like the type of cheat used or on what servers (like I give a shit), so now I sell copy's of L4D and the Orange Box to buy my honestly purchased Steam games again. Googling this situation shows Steam doesn't budge on this issue except in exceptional situations.

To all at Valve, I love your games, but take an unjustified, hard stance with me...expect the same in return. I'm not proud, but I've done nothing wrong yet receiving a penalty.

Anyways, I'm usually against this sort of thing but considering what happened to you it's not that big of a deal. But I still think you should email Valve and explain your situation. This seems like an exceptional situation.

Anyways, I'm usually against this sort of thing but considering what happened to you it's not that big of a deal. But I still think you should email Valve and explain your situation. This seems like an exceptional situation.

I don't think this is an exceptional case, I understand that accounts get hacked daily, but to take away from the wronged party is, well....wrong.

They received a number of emails from me providing proof of purchase, the IP I play from and all manner of 'What about if I....." scenarios, they just won't budge.

J-Man, have you managed to get a VAC ban lifted? It'd give me hope if you have.

I wish that one's steam profile would be seperate from one's actual games. What bothers me is that, when my computer decides to be a jerk and not let me on the internet, I can't play my steam games, dispite the fact that they are on my computer.

Dessembrae:this is one of the main reasons why i NEVER by full games or even expansions via digital distribution!xbox live arcade games yes, DLC like maps and small expansions yes. But never full games.

second reason is that i don't really feel like i "own" the game unless i have a hard copy...but that's just me :p

Problem is, even if you buy a hard copy of a game that requires a Steam account, that hard copy is forever tied to your Steam account by the serial. If someone hacks your Steam account, they've got that game even though you're holding the fucking disc in your clenched fists. Clenched with impotent rage.

This happened very recently with a friend of mine, but luckily he managed to get it back by providing Valve with a ridiculously long list of evidence that it was his account. Turns out someone had hacked his account and then sold it to someone else. Someone who buys games from pirates...

ZeroMachine:There should never EVER be no exceptions to rules. No exceptions!

... wait...

*cough*

Anyways, I'm usually against this sort of thing but considering what happened to you it's not that big of a deal. But I still think you should email Valve and explain your situation. This seems like an exceptional situation.

Exactly!

Besides, Valve should know that they only have something to lose from such practices. They'll only lose more and more customers as incidents like this continue to occur. They stand to gain much more if they make their games a bit more accessable. Yeah, there might be an increase in piracy, but it would probably only last for a brief time as people start to realize that it's not worth the risk anymore, and any increase in piracy will likely be eclipsed by the amount of new and returning customers.

i must say that i sympathise with you as my steam account was banned for no reason what so ever (only had it for 3 days and never used it before) so i had to make a new one and that got banned as well (also for no particular reason) so i gave up on steam and did the old method of buying games (eg. in a store) and i found it to be more pleasing as ive got certian software that allows me to play games without the CD once its installed so ive got a big shelf full of cases that make me feel like a collector.on the subject of piracy, i see it like this. if you just pirate stuff to find out if its good or not, look for a demo first. thats what they are there for. if no demo, then pirate but delete it after a few days and decide whether you want it or not. this would include compatability issues as well (i did this with World in Conflict which didnt work on my computer at the time thus saving myself £30).selling pirated copies is a massive NO. pirating one copy for yourself is fine since there is no negative loss to the company that made the game. selling copies to other people is denying profit for the company and therefore will induce loss.if all else fails, just make a new account and delete your old one. its a pain in the ass but at least you wont be banned.

I am not really familiar with the Steam system because I don't own a credit card or like FPS multiplayer hence Steam is pretty much useless FOR ME personally.

But I have a large experience with account hacks from World of Warcraft, where an account gets hacked, robbed and left to bot and get banned afterward.

Blizzard Entertainment has a zero tolerance towards hacking, and states that actions are taken against the account from which an offense has been committed rather than against a person

But I would like to remind you of a very crucial part of any company without exceptions. Public Relations cannot be handled by a machine, which is why when making an appeal, you will always have the human factor in your favor. You will be talking to a person with human emotions, one of which is compassion. When you explain the situation in a kind enough manner, and in a way that shows your sorrow, you will always pluck a heart string in the somebody who reads your e-mail.

The important thing is to firstly sound like a well-spoken aristocratic gentleman/woman in terms of wording and sentence structure, and secondly to show them that this means a whole lot to you.

Now this might seem like an evil way to exploit people's compassion, but remind yourself that you are being screwed over by a zero-tolerance system.

Well that sucks. I honestly can't think of what to say other than numerous emails to Valve explaining the situation. Although it seems that you've already acted and are just venting here without asking for advice.

Err... trying to stay on topic. I believe that your case is one of the justifiable reasons for piracy. However you've sold your Fallout 3/Orange box and therefore transferred ownership to another person in exchange for money so by that logic I do not agree with what you've done.

If you can think of a way to make passwords unguessable, you would become very rich, very quickly. I use 3 passwords for home & work accounts and it's all been fine, it's just in the gaming part of my life that I got unlucky.

wordsmith:Out of interest, how did your account get hacked? Did you annoy a hacker or something?

Nothing I know about, been playing CS then Source, TF then TF2 for years, without incident.

My Steam account got hacked, by the time (just over 3 weeks) Valve let me know it had indeed been hijacked and had reset my password. Logging in I found my account VAC banned. I was told that the ban would not be lifted and no information would be provided; like the type of cheat used or on what servers (like I give a shit), so now I sell copy's of L4D and the Orange Box to buy my honestly purchased Steam games again. Googling this situation shows Steam doesn't budge on this issue except in exceptional situations.

To all at Valve, I love your games, but take an unjustified, hard stance with me...expect the same in return. I'm not proud, but I've done nothing wrong yet receiving a penalty.

Why did you buy those games from Steam when you could gotten them cheaper from retail?

Well, that sucks a lot. All you can really do is e-mail valve a lot and hope that they feel pity for you.

On a side note, I walked into a second hand game store, and there are loads of copies of Left 4 Dead and the Orange Box (for PC) on the shelves. Either I'm missing something, or someone's getting mightily screwed over...

now I sell copy's of L4D and the Orange Box to buy my honestly purchased Steam games again

I'm running under the assumption that what you mean by this is that you've got a key generator and are now over on eBay or somesuch selling several fake copies of L4D and Orange Box, because this sentence only makes sense under English that way. Of course, titling the thread, "Steam made me a pirate" only helps to confirm this.

So, basically, the scenario breaks down like this:

Valve locks the OP's account for his own protection (to stop the pirate from committing crimes in his name and sticking him with all sorts of identity-theft-related problems).

The OP gets ticked off his account was locked so he decides to go commit a crime by selling illegal copies of their games to get a new account working.

Then he comes here to this forum to brag about his thoroughly illegal actions believing that the Escapist will protect him if Valve hears about this and decides to press charges.

Not the sharpest tool in the drawer, is he?

Here's what you should have done: Call Valve's tech support line and explain what happened. Chances are, a face-to-face with their customer over the phone would have been enough to get your account back online. They'll do some kind of verification, unlock your account, and you would have been good to go.

I know this because I had my account locked once. All I had to do to get it back up and running was send them an email with a digital photo of the CD case with the code. Given this physical evidence, they believed I was me, so reset my password and I was good to go.

As for the OP, I would just pray that Valve's legal department doesn't hear about this. They don't often get a chance to crucify pirates on account of how they're generally not stupid enough to identify themselves.

Because you don't know how to effectively protect your account of hackers. Or maybe because you downloaded a virus without knowing and it key logged you of your password.

The only one here to blame is yourself. Not Valve.

He's right... protecting your password is quite easy if you stay away from shady sites and aren't dumb enough to fall in to a phishing scam. VALVe will never ask you for your password. ;)

Whilst you are more or less right, that doesn't really invalidate the fact that his account got hacked, and that he got banned for no fault of his own. Someone who walks through a bad part of town on their own and gets mugged still deserves support and sympathy (and maybe a little advice about bringing a friend next time...) from people, even if they weren't as careful as they could be.